This blog is still and maybee always will be in alpha. There is no strict editorial direction at this time, but it's likely to be rantings and ravings about technology, design, art, culture and especially all things new media.

"Battelle, best known as the founder of the late, lamented Industry Standard (like seemingly everyone else who ever worked at a new-economy publication, he contributes to this magazine now), is sloooowly pulling the wraps off his next media venture.

Dubbed FM Publishing, it's his personal attempt at building a blog confederacy. (The 'FM' actually stands for 'Federated Media.') But unlike Denton, who publishes only the blogs he finds personally interesting, or Calacanis, who follows the trails of Google (GOOG) AdWords wherever they might lead him, Battelle intends to partner only with bloggers who have decided that their blogs are worth owning and who also already have viable business models.

His plan is to offer himself as a publisher-as-service to blogging entities. He'd aggregate traffic, sell category-specific advertising against the sites in the FM network, and handle the back-end business and tech issues. He's done much of this for BoingBoing, where he's been acting as 'band manager,' as he puts it, for more than a year to generate cash from the site. Calacanis, who is definitely a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats type, offered, via e-mail, this rosy summary of Battelle's accomplishments there: 'John did an amazing job over the past six months taking BoingBoing from ad/revenue-free to ad/revenue-filled without upsetting the user base or the four bloggers. I understand it makes $40k a month and is growing ... so $500,000 a year across five folks is a nice living ... if John can do that 10 more times he has a very powerful business.' (Battelle says, 'We don't talk about numbers, but they are in the right range, if a bit high.') BoingBoing has already signed up as FM Publishing's first client, provided Battelle can get his company off the ground.

What's interesting about Battelle's approach is his stated intention to keep his mitts off everyone's intellectual property. 'I am definitely not saying 'Turn everything over to me,'' he says. Bloggers keep their sites. What's even more interesting is that Battelle -- who is blogging the entire prelaunch experience for public consumption at fmpub.net -- is looking for seed funding from strategic investors, and that he's open to the idea of selling out someday. Taken together, Battelle's philosophy and his business plan signal that 1) blogs are valuable enough to be worth owning, and 2) he's inviting the mainstream media to decide what 'enough' means in the case of ventures as small as his own."

Being a huge fan of the ninja culture, I'm a huge fan of the excellent dubbing, and the excellent qualities of the films ninja culture tends to inspire. It's hard to believe the excellent quality of the entertainment one finds in the video blogging ninjasphere. It's excellent. Enjoy.

"I'd always know I was different. Right from the moment I was born. See, I actually punched my way directly out of the womb. Lot of kids kick in there, but I was the one to break out on his own. My training begain in that exact moment and I believe it will continue until the day I am summarily defeated. Let's hope that day ain't today. Heyah!"

Via The Institute for Infinitely Small Things - a research organization dedicated to the discovery, creation, collection, construction and documentation of all of the infinitely small things in the world, past, present and future.

Sunday, April 24

Below are some snips from a really good blog post by Ethan Zuckerman about how "blogged about" newspapers are.

... It's become a popular meme in the blogosphere that more people read the New York Times online than on paper. While that's true, an order of magnitude more people read the Christian Science Monitor online than on paper. Digital Deliverance speculated a year ago that CSM had about 69,000 paper subscribers, and 1.7 million unique visitors per month to their website. In other words, by one count, roughly twenty-five times as many people read CSM online as on paper...

It's hard to summarize such an excellent technical article. But there are four very interesting points.

a) The Christian Science Monitor has the highest ratio of blogging references in comparison to it's relatively small real world circulation of roughly 71,000... with 9,578 links from 4,636 sources according to Technoratti. This is 134.90 links per thousand circulation (LpkC). It would appear far and away the the CSM is the most successful paper of record within the blogosphere.

b) USA Today the highest circulation US paper with 2,665,815 subscribers has 17.800 links from 10,861 sources for a LpkC ratio of 6.68, which is about average according to the newspapers Ethan tested. His mean was 14.43 links per thousand circulation.

c) The NY Times whom some (including myself) might mistakenly think would have a low link rate given it's pay to read archive appears to have the second highest link to circulation ratio of 63.08 links per thousand circulation (LpkC). This is a sure sign that their free for 2 weeks(?) pay to read historical articles policy really works in courting the blogosphere and still collecting money. I'm personally sort of disappointed by this as I'm disappointed by their pay and subscription practices. I have to give them credit though it seems to be very effective. I only hope that one day we'll have a much more historical understanding on their numbers. It would be nice to know what their numbers were like prior to their pay to read policy, and how much money they're making of their pay to read policy. It's like $4 or $5 an article, which seems a little steep, but I could see it being an ever growing source of revenue as it is heavily referenced in the blogosphere. Devils! :)

d) The Wall Street Journal is clearly is one of the least blogged about newspapers with their "notorious" policy "for hiding nearly all of its content behind a paid firewall". They have the second highest circulation of any US paper of 2,106,774, but there were only 910 links to them from 828 sources and their link per thousand subscribers ratio is only .40.

Just to reiterate this means for every 2,500 subscribers one person blogs about them. This compared to Christian Science Monitor's one blog post per 7.5 subscribers. That's quite an amazing difference. Perhaps we'll see everyone picking up on the NY Times way of doing things in the near future. They're evil but they're brilliant, I'll have to live with it.

The most blogged about or "bloggiest" newspapers according to Ethan are:

Saturday, April 23

This is a flash back. My blog wasn't around then, but it's still relevant. It's in the grand BMW films tradition. A not so successful experiment in the "new" advertising. Almost did it, but perhaps not so honest. Certainly not for the Mercedes crowd. It suffered some good backlash.

The German luxury automaker recently bowed a trailer for a new thriller called "Lucky Star," which stars Benicio del Toro, in British movie theaters and on television.

The 2½-minute trailer, helmed by Michael Mann ("Ali," "The Insider"), centers on a master gambler named Mr. H who bets big and wins at casinos and in the stock market, which garners the attention of murky government agents.

Scenes show Del Toro being chased around Los Angeles by helicopters, escaping pursuers on a freeway, absconding with secret files and burning down a shack in the desert.

There's just one catch: Although Mann reportedly has optioned the story rights, "Lucky Star" isn't a real movie.

Spearheaded by its new ad agency Campbell Doyle Dye, Mercedes is mimicking BMW's recent foray into entertainment by hiring Hollywood heavyweights to promote its vehicles.

However, in contrast to BMW's short films, "Lucky Star" is much more of a subtle sell, verging on the imperceptible. Del Toro drives Mercedes' sleek new silver 500 SL convertible sports car, but the Mercedes logo is never shown, and the company's name never appears in the trailer.

"Lucky Star" refers to the Mercedes iconic logo.

"Where you see cars most dramatically and excitingly portrayed is in movie trailers," says Richard Payne, Mercedes-Benz's communications manager. "It's not a commercial selling that car, it's talking about the whole excitement and dynamism of the brand."

Auds won't be left hanging with the trailer, however.

Pic's Web site (luckyluckystar.com), where Mercedes isn't being subtle about its involvement, houses the trailer, info, reviews and additional video of the SL and a description of the film's plot and characters.

It also hints that there's more to come, with Mercedes even contemplating a full-length feature of "Lucky Star," should the campaign prove successful. [Variety July 14, 2002 By Marc Graser]

Wednesday, April 20

I almost missed this. I'm a sucker for radical ideas in architecture and these are wild. Many of them were actually started, but were abandoned during WWII.

A virtual exhibition of drawings of unrealized architectural projects from Moscow 1920 to 1950, could easily have been entitled "Stalin's Wet Dreams." Some decidedly futuristic architecture, including a 415 meters high Palace of the Soviets."

Before I start getting to serious, I thought I might post this excellent cartoon remix call "Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown" which was done " many many moons ago" by students at Cal-Arts. According to Anime Hell "BMTHOCB has achieved legendary cult status in the underground film 'circuits'". I believe it, cult culture is te bomb.

"this tuesday night...[]..when the Great Pumpkin puts a bounty on Charlie Brown's head, the rest of the gang race against each other to bump him off and collect the reward..."

I'm sure many people have watched twisted parodies of Charles Schulz beloved PEANUTS comic strip like MAD TV's "South Parknuts" and SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE's Peanuts tribute sketch in 2000, but none of them have the fast-paced thrills of this obscure animated B&W student short done at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1986 by renowned animator Jim Reardon (who later worked on THE SIMPSONS and Disney films like THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE)! The short has been screened at Lunacon (a sci-fi con I regularly attend) since about 1997 or 1998, and I was immediately hooked! This was the best of the old CalArts student shorts among what Lunacon showed (before I saw Craig McCracken's WHOOPASS STEW, which later became THE POWERPUFF GIRLS)!

Most of the other Peanuts parodies always had Charlie Brown die or commit suicide, to all of which I say, "been there, done that," but this was about the first time I've ever seen Charlie Brown unleash the beast within (something I, and possibly some other people, always wanted to see him do after some of the Peanuts Gang were so cruel to him)! In this short, the Great Pumpkin orders the Peanuts Gang to kill Charlie Brown in all sorts of ways, until Charlie himself, when getting chased by the gang at one point, becomes Rambo/Schwarzenegger-like and goes around blowing away all of the Peanuts Gang with his uzi! Then, for some reason, we see other cartoon characters (Fred Flintstone, Mickey Mouse, Popeye, etc.) slaughtering each other at random until the Hanna-Barbera version of Godzilla nullifies the entire scene, and amongst all the carnage and destruction, Charlie Brown stood victorious! The climax was just hilariously chaotic! There was even a funny (and long) disclaimer in the closing credits ("This film is not intended to ruin the good name of Charles M. Schulz," etc. etc.)!

This short may not be for the more sensitive fans of PEANUTS, but if you're lucky, give BRING ME THE HEAD OF CHARLIE BROWN a try! It is, by far, the best of the twisted PEANUTS parodies!

Josh Leo is a fairly new face in the vlogosphere and right from my home state of Michigan! I'm so excited I have a new vlogging celebrity in my home state! :) He's from Grand Rapids in fact. I've spent quite a bit of time up there with Kendall School of design folk. (But let's not forget the Human Dog crew from Detroit!)

Anyway, this week Josh Leo's the man. In his first ever rant he makes brilliant manifesto for video blogging. What I love most about this piece is not just how much it kicks ass, but that I think an outsider could even get it. Case in point this comment posted on Josh's vlog in response.

Hey dude, well, if it makes you feel any more "important" I had honestly NEVER heard of such a thing as a vlog before in all my life, till stumbling on yours, courtesy of the "next blog" button. Intriguing stuff. So if nothing else you have the distinction of introducing me to this 'brand new' medium...even if it is at the community theater level. ;)

It's going to be the first video on my source list for newbies. The first point of reference.

"Vlogs...What an exciting new development I find myself in the middle of! I have been thinking a lot about Vlogs and their implications. This is my first rant video... I hope you enjoy it. I would love if this started a video conversation, in fact I encourage it. (Sorry to all my non-vlogging friends, but this post is pretty much geared towards those who are familiar with the Vlogosphere) I don't mean to say that the popular vloggers are less approachable, I just think that they are somehow more powerful..."

On a side note I see something amazing and good happening. I see the video blogging world is becoming highly developed and more diverse with each passing day, but the press and the hype hasn't picked up on it yet. A friend of mine (not a vlogger but a vlog fan) mentioned this to me. It's just kicking ass, but it's remaining somewhat isolated from the hype podcasting has received.

I've talked for years to anyone that would listen about the bubbling rich media internet, a huge incalculable hidden pool lurking just below the surface of the internet the rest of the world sees everyday. It's always been my goal to reach into that, to bring it to the surface for the world to see and in so doing help turn the internet and media inside out. To decentralize the media and to help others find their voices.

We all know what it is and we know its power. We occasionally see it, such as when Jib Jab releases a presidential parody in Flash media that's downloads tens of millions of times... or how about the the infamous Jon Stewart on CNN Crossfire clip that's online distribution dwarfed it's TV viewership,,, or the word of blog network which spread first person videos of the Tsunami around the world.

It's only a select few who really get to experience this world, but through video blogging we have come to live in this new space just below the surface. We're a part of this new slow tidal wave of change, we are shepherds of new media, and hopefully through video blogging we'll bring everything we know and love about new media to the surface of the internet for all to enjoy and participate in.

In my opinion this time period right now is a great thing. (Or perhaps I'm just to inspired right now by the documentary Dogtown and Z-boys. ;)

The longer we can avoid the hype the better right now. It may never get more golden than this. (Or it might!) This in fact must be something like what first users of the internet felt. For a short time we get to know everyone. We're still a single diverse community and though I hope it will last and want it to last there may be a time when I find myself saying "I remember when i knew so and so" in speaking of more than a few of you. Let's hope one of the characteristics of this new media means we can have our cake and eat it to.

Old media hype has a reality distortion feed. It conjures up terrible misconceptions and ultimately can even spark backlash. The longer we can polish and grow this community one person at a time... the longer we can polish our skills, media, tools and services before this critical mass comes the better. It will come will come in it's own time lets just hope not all at once.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the success of the vlogosphere and the speed at which it will be picked up by the masses has to do with one thing at this point. All the factors are in place with ourmedia.org, mediaRSS coming along, mefeedia and great community, but the killer app of the video blogging revolution is going to be ANT for Windows. The success of the initial release of this application will go hand in hand with video blogging because it is how the newcomer majority will first experience video blogging.

Josh gives a nodd to ANT, and in turn I say we need to get it out for Windows for not only Josh and the rest of the current vlogging community, but for all the as yet undiscovered Josh's out there. And we need to put a directory in it so all the new talent can have the chance to be discovered right along side the over the hill gang.

I made a post yesterday in which I rambled about branded media and Vans backing of the film Dogtown and Z-boys in 2001, a (very good) skating documentary. Today I stumbled across a couple items that may shed a little more insight into the future of advertising in new media.

First, the fun stuff. Today while flipping through some old vlog posts I stumbled upon what else but the following post by a young new vlogger about her Vans shoe buying "saga".

I thought it was great, and incredibly on point. Free promo for Vans here! It's called the newly revitalized word of mouth industry. I don't know that corporations will ever be able to do any traditional commerce (such as ad buys) on this level and that would likely be very wrong, but maybe they'll send her a free pair of shoes or something. What is interesting is that certainly this is a reflection of something Vans is doing much higher up in the chain. Dog Town and Z-boys is just one example. The great thing is if they want to find out all they have to do is email Ann or leave a comment on her blog. Seriously a single comment goes a long way with vloggers and bloggers, we thrive on feedback.

So, second, a little perspective, looking back at an article from January 6th on advertising and marketing in blogs.

If you're an online media buyer, planner, or advertiser, you're probably already salivating at the thought. Ever since blogs took off and made their way onto millions of marketers' collective radar last year, progressive souls have been racking their brains for ways to utilize this tool. Some companies, such as BizNetTravel, created their own blogs to interact with customers and clients online. Others, such as Lee Jeans, launched blogs as part of cross-media promotional campaigns.

Those who simply wanted to advertise in an existing blog, however, found placements hard to come by. Although some opportunities do exist (and new ones are cropping up), the channel definitely left something to be desired.

If we're lucky, vblogs will change all that.

Nearly as popular as blogs in 2004 was online video advertising. Demand for video formats and placements remains high. According to a year-end survey conducted by video ad developer Unicast, as much as 70 percent of advertisers and agencies plan to increase online ad spending by an average of nearly 50 percent this year. They say they're particularly interested in boosting their online video usage.

Those stats are consistent with what Jupiter Research (a Jupitermedia Corp. division) reported last summer. It estimated online video ad spending would grow fivefold to reach $657 million by 2009.

As marketers' obsession with online video advertising grows, what better time to introduce a placement that unifies the power of video with the value of blogs? By inserting unique, unconventional ad messages into video clips on vlogs, marketers may just be able to take both video and blog advertising to the next level.

If vlogs take off as expected, it's likely only a handful will accept advertising or provide enough traffic volume to make a placement worthwhile. Whether blog readers will tolerate the more intrusive video advertising also remains to be seen. If they do, the Internet industry may be singing the praises of yet another new online ad format by this time next year.

Bloggers are ready to 'show' instead of 'tell.' My bet is advertisers will devour this next generation of blogs.

As I said, I don't know that advertisers will ever or should ever buy their way into personal vlogs though I'm sure some opportunities will exist with commercial vlog ventures. We're reaching a balanced state in the great conversation where the corporate and personal can mix on their own terms.

I think the important thing to start with is just making yourself available to your target market. Place your TV spots online in open formats. Make them fun, interesting, something people would actually want to see, viral. Be visible, sponsor as many events and websites that relate to your market as possible. Start a conversation, start a corporate vlog / blog / podcast. Accessibility is the first and safest step. Just make yourself available.

And in the future... I think we're going to see the rise of new types of lifestyle media. Not just lifestyle publications, but lifestyle media companies that branch out into internet video programming, podcasting and audio programing, as well as their publishing internet and hard copy textual and photographic content. If so it's going to be a great time to be a videographer. They should finally be as in demand as magazine photogs. I'm betting this will be one of the primary markets where monetization will happen and so far we have none. There are now small to mid size "media companies". The closest I've seen are small players like Weblogs, Inc. and Wireless Watch Japan which are starting to mix video and or audio programing with text based publications. I'm really looking for it to take off when publishers of lifestyle rags like Skateboarder magazine become true media networks. Not to give away to much, got some tricks up my sleeve. ;)

Thursday, April 14

A mention on vlogging, a mention about the Kingiskong.net video production diary for Peter Jackson's new King Kong movie... Fox hooks up with friendster for a blog promotion for Pamela Anderson's new show "Stacked", and finally a recap of Lee's "90 ft. babe" godzilla inspired ad and corresponding blog.

"Testing the waters on the TV industry's behalf is FOX, which is using blogs to build a personal relationship between viewers and the stars of its new shows. In an upcoming campaign to promote the new series 'Stacked,' the network is partnering with community site Friendster, using its free blogging service to build excitement around the show. Users can visit the 'Stacked on Friendster Blogs' page and read blogs written by Pamela Anderson and other members of the cast and crew.

The page offers photos from the pilot's taping, blogs (almost 30), and information about the actors' favorite books, music, movies, and, of course, blogs (features that can be added to any Friendster blog). According to FOX, the blogs will be updated throughout the season so viewers can continue to "follow along with exclusive, up-to-date, behind-the-scenes information and insight."
[...]
So far, the new breed of promotional bloggers seems to be doing everything right. They have a motive for using the medium; they aren't jumping on the blog bandwagon without good reason. Their sites don't just generate awareness and buzz, but connect consumers with the company's products by inviting them into their personal world. Posts on these blogs have a purpose and allow users to relate to the people behind them.

It will be interesting to see how other industries use blogs as their popularity among marketers grows. How far will companies go to make consumers feel a personal connection to what they're offering? Will their enthusiasm lead to continued improvement or blog overexposure?

Whatever the case, those eager to experiment had better hustle. This window of opportunity won't likely be open for long.

This is a far cry from the misteps and backlash from the promotional blogs of last year. I think the key diferences are that this year the expectations are more realistic and the approaches are honest and transparent. No more deception. Are marketing and advertising companies actualy starting to getting blogging?

Often the industry rags are quick to petal the hype. I'm glad Clickz.com is at least backing it up with good info. Thanks clickz.

Wednesday, April 13

"As you may know, I left my job a few weeks ago in order to devote myself full-time to del.icio.us. In order to make that posssible, I accepted an investment from a group of thoughtful and influential investors. The group I chose to work with understands my commitment to maintaining the integrity of the service and the security of your data. They were also willing to take a minority stake, which will keep me in control of the future of del.icio.us.

I'm very excited about this opportunity to focus on del.icio.us and put together a team to help me grow the service. My first priority is improving reliability and responsiveness, with new features following soon.

Tuesday, April 12

Found this over on Jay Deadman's blog and found it interesting. Some of you may know Jermey Allaire was the man behind Allaire Corp, which was bought up by Macromedia. Fewer may have heard of Bright Cove which is his new startup which received something like $5 mil in venture capital recently.

Here is Jeremy Allaire talking about video publishing on the web.
IPTV vs Internet of Video
He calls what we do..."the internet of video". (weird name)
He calls what CNN/MTV/Sony will do...IPTV.
"Internet of the Video" is video blogging , or people posting personal videos.
IPTV is big companies using the web to push more commercial video content at us.
In five years, video will be a normal part of the web experience...but will it be mainly MTV and Fox news videos....or videos that we make for each other?

It sounds like Jeremy is speaking to a business audience.
But he does a really good job laying out the landscape for the present reality of video publishing...and how it maight play out.
If you have an idea of what videoblogging is...he explains what he thinks are the barriers to personal video publishing and distribution.

He's heading up a company called Brightcove that is building a box that may let regular people publish video to TV.
Imagine having ANT on your TV....subscribe to any video feed you want...and it downloads to your TV's harddrive...and you watch it on your couch with a remote control in your hand.

Is this what we want?
More TV?
or do we want a web experience that allows us to watch, comment to each other, trackback, and have conversations?

When people talk about creating these TV networks where anyone can post their video to TV...I wonder...how open can it be?
Openness doesn't often equal profit.
Does money and sharing video with each other meet somewhere?
Everyone is scrambling to find out.

My thoughts: What interested me here is the clash of old media and new media paradigms. Is the future of video on the web to be simply IPTV, old TV moved to the internet, or is it to be something much more open? Of course, I say both, but I'm not really interested in what old media has to say about IPTV, and I'm even less interested in what players like Microsoft would make it. I'm not interested in their DRM, Reality TV, advertising as usual, or cable news and commentary.

What I think is most interesting is that the bottom is dropping out from under mass media. The price of entrance is falling drastically, the boundaries to entrance are disappearing. This has created an amazing new space for public discourse where mass media can now take place on a radically personal level... a place where an individual can talk to 1 person or 1 million people all over the world as easy as they could pick up the phone and indeed as personally as if they are talking on the phone. What interests me here is not that old media players will live or die or will make billions more in the next ten years (and they will) but that mass media will no longer be few to many, but many to many. The technology already exists to take media well past hollywood, exploding independent media, and beyond even the thousands of niche markets all over the world. The line between mass media and personal media no longer exists. Mass media now starts with an audience of one.

The problem now is distributing it, making it accessible to everyone, conquering the digital divide.... and making it easier and easier to use so it can fit into everyday situations.

Monday, April 11

There have been a lot of posts recently in the blogosphere regarding uses for Google's new satellite maps. Not that we haven't had satellite footage before, in fact I've seen higher resolution, but the ease of use and accessibility is the real revolution. Already people are finding it an interesting research tool. (See the following post.) FYI, A short off-shoot here, but people ask me why some linux distros and open source apps are so successful when they are not so easy to use. What they don't realize is usability is only half the equation, accessibility is the other half. A great deal of accessibility can make up for quite a bit of usability. Google's new map tools have both. Eat dirt Terraserver... and thanks for the lesson Google.

Google Maps' new satellite feature was just launched this week and already treehuggers are putting it to good use- over at Mezzoblue a British Columbia treehugger is displaying scary pictures of clearcutting. This tool is so easy to use that it could lead to a whole new world of corporate and environmental whistleblowing.

"Announcing the world's first Contagious Media Showdown. Do you have what it takes to corral enough traffic to win the cash prizes? Can you make the next Dancing Baby, All Your Base, or Star Wars Kid and ride into the sunset with the bounty? This is your chance to prove you are the best in the West."

Network television was built around the 30-second ad spot. But that model is no longer working. Audiences are shrinking, ads are being skipped, and marketers are beginning to worry. And the New Media Order is fast approaching, with innovations like podcasting, videologs, and video-on-demand. Will the new media revolution be a violent and destructive one? What happens if the old advertising model collapses before the brave new world is fully prepared? Bob Garfield's answer: Chaos.

This particular segment is exactly 36 minutes into the latest on the media podcast and is 16min and 8 seconds long.

It's like someone's looking over my shoulder. (Yeah, like anyone knows who I am. ;)

They pretty much touched on all the major points for decentralized media. You know... the death of advertising as we know it, video blogging, podcasting, mass media disruption, new media order, video-on-deman, widespread cultural change, the total democratization of media, everyone is an individual again, global hegemony run a-muck, a brave new world, micromedia, dogs and cats living together, "today's marketing model is broken" ...that last from Procter and Gamble's CEO. It's purely unworthy hype and propaganda for new decentralized media. In short, I love it!

Funny enough they have a direct link to the MP3 (how else could you download it) but there is no permanent link to the page about the program, and won't be any transcript until Wednesday. I can't even link to the thing, how funny is that? I'll try to do a post on Wednesday once the transcript comes out.